


concentration

by dirklemore



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirklemore/pseuds/dirklemore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People often ask you about what goes on in your mind.</p>
<p>You wish there was one right way to explain it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	concentration

**Author's Note:**

> bip bop boop a stupid dumb thing based on dirk

You know your mind doesn't function like anyone else's. You figure that out when you first end up connecting a video chat up with Roxy. She's writing code - you can see the concentration in her face as she focuses on something she enjoy.

It makes you wonder why you never feel that. Why you can't engross yourself in something like that. 

So you start building. You take spare parts from everything and you start building robots. It isn't easy at first - but after you learn the basics, it comes easy. It makes sense. You don't have to know exactly how it works - you just know that if you can connect wire A to port A and wire B to port B, what you want will happen. It flows like a map in your mind.

You start to think maybe you might have the concentration levels she does.

The two of you stay up all night working, and you realize you're wrong. She's commenting on how much you fiddle - a twitch here and there, your head turns, how you keep adjusting the volume of your music. It annoys her, and she disconnects again.

And then there it is, it's in your head, you're stuck. You can't stop picking up those feelings as you build. Twitch, change song, tinker, tinker, shake your hand, tap your fingers, bounce your knee, tinker, volume adjust, tinker, tinker, adjust, change song--

It keeps going on and on and the more you think, the more you realize you can't finish a project. Your chest is tight and your head hurts - it pounds and you shut your eyes, trying to keep back the onslaught of a migraine. You can't focus and you can't stop your mind from taking in every bit of information at once.

You take long showers to see if you can clear your head. You're sure you can - you've got a lot on your mind, and you need to let it go.

It helps for a few hours. You go back to working on a robot and you get farther in two hours than you did in three days. Success. You allow yourself a break, wiping your greasy hands on your pants and go to just talking to your friends. It's relaxing, and soon you find yourself talking to them while building. Your over-active head is still doing it's thing - but you're accomplishing more. You're building and talking and tapping and adjusting and moving and feeling and working.

After those hours pass, it's gone. You shout in frustration as the white-noise returns to your head. A wrench is thrown across your room and you can't figure it out. You can't figure out why one minute you can pour yourself into multi-tasking and getting so much done and the next the same multi-tasking keeps you separated from the work you actually want to complete.

It fucks with your emotional stability the same way you can't sit still. A flit of happiness, self-loathing, sudden joy, anger. It takes little to no time for you to go from being comfortable being alone to aching for a touch, or any sort of contact. The constant buzzing in your head stays.

So you sleep. You sleep for hours on end and when you wake up, you try and work. You let yourself do what you need to work. You fiddle and adjust and move and leave for a few minutes, come back, and you do what you do best. 

You're sure that it's the same maps in your head that make it easy to understand what to do in every situation - personal, robotic, strifing, _anything_ \- the ability that makes things click for you is the same that sends that constant buzzing. It sends white-noise and distractions and makes your brain pick up every little sound and movement and ache and makes you nit-picky and angry.

The thing that allows you to function like you do -- whatever it is that makes you how you are -- is the same thing that simultaneously fucks with you and makes you desperate for control, makes your head and chest ache and your emotions rampant.

As frustrating as it is, you're not sure if you'd fix it if you could.

Things make sense to you. Maybe nobody else can understand how it works, or why you do what you do, but you can. As bizarre and jumbled as your head is, it makes sense. 

And you figure that's all that matters at this point.


End file.
